The Guy Who Has Everything
by SomewhereApart
Summary: What do you get for the guy who has everything? Charlotte has a pretty good answer. A look at Christmas for Charlotte and Cooper over the years.


She's not good with words. Never has been. Not the touchy-feely kind anyway. Getting her to open up is like pulling teeth. Which is why he'd gotten a little choked up the first Christmas they shared together, when all she'd handed him was a thick envelope stuffed full of stationery, her looping letters covering the pages.

"It's nothin' important," she'd told him. "I just thought, y'know, it's Christmas, and… well, you always say I don't tell you anything, so… I wanted you to know how I feel." She'd tucked a lock of hair anxiously behind her ear, then added, "And I had no idea what the hell else to get you, because you have absolutely no impulse control and buy everything you want the day it comes out."

He'd chuckled a little at that, at the annoyance in her voice, and nodded, his eyes skimming the first few lines. And then her hand had slapped over the page, and he'd looked up to find her sneering at him. "Well, don't read right now. God. Wait until you're alone."

He'd understood the translation: _wait until I'm not here. _Wait until she didn't have to be witness to her own voluntary vulnerability.

He'd tucked the paper back into the envelope and stashed it away, and she'd distracted him by mentioning casually that she was wearing crotch-less panties again. It wasn't long before he'd peeled her out of soft cashmere and denim to reveal the Santa-red satin underneath. Not long after that before they were making a whole lot of their own Christmas cheer on the floor next to his couch.

.:.

The next Christmas, they hadn't been speaking. She'd been married before, and he was punishing her, and she'd handed him another envelope and told him, "Merry Christmas," with the same hesitant, walking-on-eggshells voice she always used at home with him now. When she was trying to make amends, anyway. He'd looked at it, reminded her he was Jewish, and tossed it onto the top drawer of his nightstand.

Then he'd grabbed a small box and handed it to her. Her gift. Neatly wrapped by some teenager at the department store. It was a necklace. Something thoughtless. Something he'd gotten her because he didn't hate her enough to deny her a Christmas gift, but couldn't forgive her enough to really put his heart into it.

She'd worn it every day for a week.

Her letter sat unopened until after they split up.

When he'd finally read it, it was full of apologies, and excuses, and insistences of love and devotion that felt hollow and false in light of the weeks that had passed between.

He'd stood over the toilet with it, lit the corner carefully with a match and watched the edges char and curl, the words eaten up by angry flames until his fingers had started to singe. He'd dropped the scraps into the toilet and flushed her lies away.

.:.

The year after that, she was still a shadow of herself. They'd cancelled all their holiday plans – a visit to his parents in Ohio, followed by Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Alabama. She hadn't wanted to see anyone. Hadn't wanted to leave the apartment.

He hadn't been expecting anything from her, not this year, but he'd woken up on the first day of Hanukkah to a notecard folded neatly on his nightstand.

_I couldn't get through this without you. Happy Hanukkah._

He hadn't been sure if she just didn't have the energy to pour herself out to him while she was trying so hard to keep it all together, or if his pointed declaration of the faith he was raised in had really hurt her deeply the year before, but either way he'd gotten a card from her every day of Hanukkah. None of them more than a sentence or two, but each of them enough to bolster him through the long dark night of her recovery.

He'd read them over and over again, for weeks.

_Thinking of you makes me feel safe, even when you're not here._

_I didn't keep it from you because I didn't trust you, I just didn't want you to hurt the way I do._

_I wish I could tell you everything I feel, but my fingers shake, and my heart starts pounding, and I don't want to go back there. But I love you more than anything, and that's all you need to know right now. _

_I'm working as hard as I can to get past this. I miss your skin against mine._

_I've always loved your humor, and your big heart, and your skills in the sack. But this year, I'm most thankful for your patience. _

_I'm sorry I stole your holidays with your family. I wish I'd made you go on your own._

_We're going to be okay. I promise. I'll make sure of it. Just don't give up on me._

He still has them in a box in the closet, a memory of how hard she'd tried to give him something meaningful, even then.

.:.

So this year, this year when he walks into their apartment one night, two weeks before the holidays, and she scrambles to tuck the sheets of paper she's been writing on into the book in her lap, he doesn't ask her what she's up to. He doesn't have to. He knows.

But then he sees the tears on her cheeks, the deep, painful ache she can't quite hide from her eyes, and he sits next to her, and frowns. He runs his fingers through her hair, and asks, "What's wrong?"

Her chin quivers a little, but she shakes her head, and sniffles, and pulls the stationery from between the pages of her book. She angles the papers so he can't see them, and tells him, "I was just workin' on your Christmas letter." Her voice is scratchy and thick. She's been crying for a while.

His thumb skims her cheek, brushes the tears away. "It made you cry?"

She nods, and presses her lips together hard, then hands him the pages. He glances at them, and shakes his head. "I'll read it when you're done."

"I just started," she tells him, shoving the papers at him again, and sure enough she's filled most of one page, but the others seem to be blank. "I can't talk about this, just… read it."

Her eyes well again, and he takes the pages from her. She's writing about Mason. About how he's a wonderful father, and she's so thankful he got the opportunity to love this child, and how she's grateful for the breather while she figured out if she wants them to have one of their own. How watching him with Mason makes her think that maybe they should. Maybe. Someday. She's still not sure.

And then he gets to where the waterworks started. There's not a single teardrop on the page, her handwriting is steady as always, but he knows. He knows because she tells him that seeing him with Mason makes her think of her father. That it's bittersweet. Especially now, around the holidays, when they're both so excited to have this with each other for the first time. That as much as she loves both of them, she's heartbroken at the sight of them sometimes, and it makes her feel guilty, and foolish, and awful.

There's a lump in his throat when he looks back up at her, and she's watching him anxiously, her eyes still wet and red. He sets the letter aside and reaches for her, drawing her in until his arms are tight around her, and her nose is buried against his neck.

"It's okay to miss him," he tells her, and her shoulders shake hard, once. "You don't have to feel guilty about that."

"It's not finished," she tells him, her voice wobbly and muffled. "I'll finish it, and the rest will be better, I promise."

He shushes her gently, strokes his fingers through her hair and tells her, "I don't care if it's sad, as long as it's honest." He presses his lips to her shoulder, and eases her back until he can see her face. His thumb traces the almost invisible scar on her cheekbone, and he tells her, "You know yours is the gift I look forward to most of all, right? Every year. I always hope it's going to be this."

She nods a little, sniffles, then forces a wry smile, "Well, what else am I gonna get ya? You have everything else."

Cooper smiles back, and pulls her in close again, and for a while they stay just like that. Cooper glances at the paper, traces the lines of her handwriting over and over, and thinks to himself that maybe this year he'll have to write a little letter of his own.


End file.
